Head of the presidential tax committee suggests suspending the diesel VAT

The value added tax on diesel, also known as automotive petrol oil, has been suggested to be postponed by Taiwo Oyedele, the chairman of the presidential committee on tax policy and fiscal reforms.

The postponement of the VAT, in Oyedele’s opinion, will mitigate the negative economic effects of President Bola Tinubu’s decision to end fuel subsidies.

On October 9, 2023, Oyedele made this claim during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme.

“What the President wants us to accomplish,” he continued, “is that within the first 30 days, there are those low-hanging fruits that people have generally acknowledged as a problem, but nobody has taken any action to address it.

Personally, I believe that the VAT on diesel should be suspended because the fuel subsidy on petrol was abolished and prices are rising. However, this is not a promise that it will be implemented.

The debt ceiling, the deficit-to-GDP ratio (as defined by the Fiscal Responsibility Act), income generation reporting, and spending quality are only a few of the issues covered by the nation’s fiscal governance, according to Oyedele.

Oyedele claimed that many people who fall under the tax net, especially those from the middle and upper classes, do not pay their fair share of taxes, adding that “some of them are in the tax net with one or two fingers.” Actually, our goal is to reduce or eliminate many of the levies that currently make doing business difficult while increasing revenue.

He suggested that the collection of revenue be predominantly handled by the Federal Inland Revenue Service in order to reduce the load of revenue production on the Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments, and Agencies and to improve the economy of the country.